Things to do when you are staying at home

Since so many of us are staying at home at the moment, self-isolating and following the guidelines on social distancing, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list with ideas for things you can do at home. I've grouped ideas into different categories, so whether you are looking after your children at home, missing going out visiting places or looking for a little distraction in these anxious times there should be something for you to do on the list! I will keep it updated if I spot new ideas and if you have any suggestions please do let me know in the comments.
Stay safe and stay healthy everyone x

Visit a Museum Online

You might not be able to leave your house at the moment but that doesn't mean you can't explore museums or art galleries! Google's Arts and Culture website allows you to explore the collections of hundreds of galleries and musuems from around the world, including:
The Natural History Museum, London
The Rijksmusuem, Amsterdam
The British Musuem, London
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The National Gallery, London
The Science Musuem, London

Explore prehistoric cave paintings in a virtual visit to The Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave

Music
- Listen to some of your favourite music.
- Make a playlist for a friend.
- Practise playing an instrument and learn new pieces by searching for sheet music online.

Enjoy Nature
We are fortunate in the UK that we are heading into spring and the weather (so far!) has been improving. Whilst a lot of life feels like it has been put on pause, nature is still carrying on as normal. Go outside in your garden or if you don't have a garden, what can you see or hear from your window? Listen for the birds singing and see the flowers blossoming and trees becoming greener.

I will be spending as much time as possible in my garden over the coming weeks. I expect a lot of people will have tidier gardens than normal! I plan to sow vegetable and flower seeds, but if you don't have a garden you can still experience the joy of watching a plant grow. Herbs can be grown on a kitchen windowsill. Did you know that there are lots of vegetables that can be regrown too? If you don't have a pot of compost for growing a plant inside you can grow carrot tops, celery and onions in a saucer of water.

Exercise
Get (or keep) fit! Even in a very small amount of space there are still exercises you can do. Sometimes if I'm feeling a bit anxious or stressed I like to remind myself how exercise releases endorphins and will make me feel better.

Joe Wicks has lots of free workout videos on his Youtube channel The Body Coach TV - including a daily PE lesson for children.

Dance - this combines listening to music to make you feel good and some exercise! I've been learning a routine to 'Come Alive' from The Greatest Showman via this video from Beginner Dance Tutorials on Youtube. I'm not very coordinated when it comes to dancing, but this video is easy to follow and fun!

Practise Yoga - Yoga With Adriene has lots of great videos to follow, ranging from short to long sessions and routines to help you relax or burn off a few calories.

Get Creative
Lots of designers are being generous right now and sharing free printables. I have designed some colouring pages, including the butterflies design shown below, which are free for you to download via this page. 

Here are some others I found which you might like:
- Angie Spurgeon has shared a weekly planner and Dahlia, Rose & Agapanthus colour-in sheet.
- Cara Rowlands has been creating lots of free colouring pages which you can see on her Instagram page Carabaradesigns
- Spoonflower have created a printable colouring book for you to download, featuring designs to colour by 10 different artists.

Have you seen rainbows popping up in the windows of your neighbourhood? I spotted lots on my one trip out to the supermarket. A think the trend started in Italy, but has spread around the world. It's a lovely thing to do to spread a little hope and raise a smile for your neighbours. People are sharing their rainbows online with #letsallbewell.

Start (or finish) a craft project. Did you start knitting a jumper or sewing a dress ages ago but never finished it? Now's the perfect time to do it! I've been looking through my stack of sewing patterns trying to decide what to make next. I've also been meaning to sew some oven gloves for ages but keep getting scared by the wadding which I've never used before, so maybe I'll do those first!

There are plenty of craft tutorials online too. You can see all the ones from my blog here.

Learn a new skill
There are thousands of classes to explore on Skillshare and if you sign up via this link you can get 2 months of Premium membership for free!

Make Art That Sells is currently offering their MBA (Money BadAss) online course for free (instead of the usual £178). The course is about making money from doing what you love and building a successful business - find out more on their website.

Affinity is currently offering a 90 day free trial of their suite of software; Publisher, Photo and Designer and a 50% discount if you want to buy and keep them. I love their software - it's what I use for creating my designs!

Read a book

We are lucky to have lots of books in our house, so it would take a very long time for us to run out of things to read! However, if you don't have many books at home there are lots of eBooks you can access online for free.
Oxford Owl have books for 3-11 year olds
Local libraries may be shut for now, but if you look up your library's website you can borrow e-books, audio books and e-magazines.

Other Ideas:
- Play a board game with a friend via a video call. You might not be able to meet face to face but you can still play a game together! Some games, like cards probably won't work but plenty of board games could be played from a distance for example battleships, chess, draughts, monopoly or snakes and ladders.
- Do a quiz with a friend online.
- If you are really desperate and have done everything else you could always clean your house and do some of those house jobs you never normally have time for!!

Colour Palette #31 - Sea Holly

I thought that it would be fun to start up sharing my colour palettes again and to try out the palettes with my own designs. This palette was inspired by my photo of sea holly, which not only has interesting colours but striking textures and shapes too. I enjoyed taking lots of photos of plants in the garden centre during last summer so be prepared for more plant inspired palettes coming soon!

Inktober 2018 Prompt List

October means that it is time for the annual drawing challenge of Inktober again! Thousands of artists take part each year, making 1 ink drawing a day for the month of October, to practice their drawing skills.
You can find out more about the challenge, including rules and the official prompt list, over on the Inktober website.

I decided that this year I would set myself my own Animals theme and came up with a list of 31 different animals to draw throughout the month. Some are ones I have drawn before and some will be completely new for me - I'm looking forward to drawing them all! I will share a weekly round up of my drawings here, on my blog, or you can follow along on my Facebook and Instagram pages.


Will you be taking part in Inktober this year? Feel free to use my prompt list - if you do I would love to see your drawings! You can use #hfc_artchallenge or tag me @hazelfishercreations on Facebook or Instagram.
Lots of other people have been sharing their own prompt lists too, so if animals don't spark your imagination there's sure to be something that will! You can find more lists on the InktoberPrompts page.

5 Things to Love About Autumn

Autumn isn't my favourite time of year, as soon as summer starts to fade and the days begin to get shorter, colder and wetter I start to feel a bit sad at the thought of next spring being so far away. However, rather than dwelling on the negative, I thought I would come up with a list of things to love about Autumn. I actually do really love having 4 different seasons with all the changes in weather that brings.  I think I would get bored pretty quickly if everyday was the same!

Colour Palette #30 - Harvest Time Field

A few weeks ago it was harvest time for the rapeseed crop near my house.  I was disappointed to miss seeing the harvest last year when I had the flu, so when I heard the combine harvester out in the field this year I had to go and take some photos!  There were some interesting colours and textures to capture.  I also spotted a male pheasant in the field!

Colour Palette #29 - Red Anemone

I love the anemones growing in my garden at the moment.  They're new this year, so it's a lovely surprise seeing what colours the flowers are as they open - like this beautiful red one which inspired a new colour palette.

Colour Palette Inspiration #28 - Cherry Blossom Flower

My last colour palette was inspired by pink apple blossom and here is another one inspired by blossom - this time it is a flower from my cherry tree.  The flowers are very pretty, but as you can see there weren't many on my little tree...

Colour Palette Inspiration #27 - Apple Blossom

I love spring flowers!  While seeking out some pink blossom to photograph I spotted this pretty apple blossom growing over the fence from my neighbours garden.

If you enjoy seeing my photos of flowers you might like to check out my Instagram page - I share more photos over there :)

Colour Palette Inspiration #26 - Peach Kalanchoe Flower

If you follow me on Instagram you may recognise this photo as I shared it a few days ago.  I grew this plant (which I believe is a kalanchoe) from a cutting last year and over the last few weeks I have been watching the flower buds grow until I opened the curtains one morning to find a flower had finally bloomed.  I love the colours of these flowers and buds so much I thought they would be great for making a colour palette from!

Colour Palette Inspiration #25: Pink Primulas

The pale yellow primulas in our garden seem to self sow easily and are far more abundant than any other colour.  So it was lovely to spot this bright pink one - it's now living in a tub on our doorstep. With the sun shining yesterday I took the opportunity to take a quick photo for this colour palette inspiration.  I love spring colours! :)

Colour Inspiration #24: Pink Threads

I wanted to do a colour inspiration post today; something bright and happy!  I thought as it is now February, and almost Valentine's Day, I would go for a pink theme so started hunting for pink objects around the room... I then remembered by lovely drawers filled with threads and thought they would be perfect for this post.  In the top corner of this photo you can just see a peek of the purples that live next to the pinks in this drawer.  There's something wonderful about seeing colours organised, they look so pretty together.  It reminds me of when I used to have a Saturday job working in a craft shop - it was one of my favourite jobs restocking the pretty threads and yarns, seeing the huge range of colours they came in! :)

7 Things to Make this Halloween

Today I thought I would share a round-up post of some ideas you can make for Halloween this weekend.  The recipes and craft projects are all quite easy to do, I've included some ideas using printables - which are great for last minute decorations or games as you can print them at home!  I would love to hear if you have any quick and easy Halloween diy projects - please let me know what you're making in the comments below!

Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes

If you have been carving pumpkins and are looking for pumpkin recipes to try, these cakes are a delicious idea!  You can find the recipe here.

Halloween Cookies with spider web icing
I shared the recipe for these on Wednesday - I also included a tutorial on how to make a spider web pattern in icing.

Halloween Treat Bags

These Halloween bags are easy to make and great for filling with sweets and treats! I shared a tutorial on how to make them last year.  You could make them with coloured paper, or you could print Halloween themed patterned paper from my shop.

Carved Oranges

If carving a pumpkin sounds like too much hard work, how about oranges instead?  I tried these a few years ago - you can find instructions on how to make them, with a jelly filling, here.  When you've eaten the jelly you could put a little tea light inside the orange too.

Spider Web Games

I love the idea of playing Pin the Spider on the Web which Kristen shared on her blog; Ella Claire Inspired.  If I had children I would definitely want to make this up for them to play!  You could either draw your own spider and spider web, or print the free printables which Kristen shares.

Alternatively, how about making a spider web shape with washi tape on your floor and throwing bean bag 'spiders' at the web - scoring higher the closer to the centre the 'spider' lands.

Halloween Bunting

I made some late additions to my Halloween party printables collection, but they're available as instant download so you can print and make them up as soon as your payment has cleared.  To make the 'Happy Halloween' banner, all you will need is a computer, printer, paper or card and some ribbon to string up the flags!

Spooky Halloween Food Labels

I added some printable Halloween themed name place cards to my Etsy shop too, which you could also use as food labels at your Halloween party.  How about coming up with fun, spooky names for your food, such as Spooky Sausages, Creepy Cookies or Witches Fingers!

If you're looking for more inspiration, check out my Halloween board on Pinterest, where I've been pinning fun Halloween food ideas, diy decorations and more...

Follow Hazel's board Halloween on Pinterest.

Colour Inspiration #23: Autumn Blackberries

Today's colour inspiration is from a photo I took a few weeks ago.  The hedgerow looked so colourful with different berries and the leaves starting to change to Autumn hues.  I loved the look of these blackberries and thought they would be great for making a colour palette!

Colour Inspiration #22: Rose Chafer Beetle

I recently spotted this amazing beetle in my garden and thought that its colours were so beautiful I had to photograph it.  I loved its shiny, metallic appearance but how it was also fluffy around the sides! It was around 2cm long.  I looked it up and think it’s a rose chafer (cetonia aurata), apparently a very beneficial beetle to have in the garden because the larvae make good compost!

Colour Inspiration #21: Bright Birthday Flowers

I had this beautiful bunch of flowers for my birthday this week and thought they would be great for using as the inspiration for a bright, bold colour palette!

Colour Inspiration #19 – Peony

We have two types of peonies in our garden; some deep red ones which are now over and these beautiful pink flowers which are in full bloom and inspired this pretty pastel colour palette.

Colour Inspiration #18 - Newt

This is one lucky newt – the other day as I was walking up the garden path I almost trod on him, but fortunately spotted him in time!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a newt this colour in our garden before; they’re usually much darker.  I managed to scoop him up and put him on a leaf by the pond.  By the time I had got my camera he had started to move off and was hiding in the leaves.

Colour Inspiration #17 – Spring Flowers

Spring is well and truly here! :D It’s my favourite time of year – blue skies, the sun is warm (but not too hot!), the garden has come to life and is full of flowers like these tulips.  Although our garden is actually looking quite tidy there’s always lots to do – I spent an hour or so yesterday morning potting up sunflower, sweet pea and marigold seedlings…

I’ve almost run out of space on the greenhouse bench so am hoping that some of the plants will be able to go outside before the next ones need planting up.  A few years ago I only managed to get one marigold seed to come up – now I have a forest! :)

Colour Inspiration #16 - White Heather

We have several different colours of heather in our garden and they’re good at attracting the bees and butterflies.  This photo was taken before our neighbour’s cat (who I call Kitty) sat on the heather while pouncing on a butterfly.  Kitty can be quite naughty!  She’s also very sweet and often comes bounding over to say hello when she sees us across the road. :)

Colour Inspiration #15 - Purple Crocus

It is officially Spring now but it’s still freezing outside – more snow is expected by the weekend! :(  I can’t wait until Spring is really here – the bulbs are starting to flower so hopefully it won’t be long now.  I took this bright photo of one of the purple crocuses in my garden.